Bosses warn taxpayers will be victims of John Setka’s AFL campaign

Employers have warned that John Setka’s war on the AFL will hurt taxpayers by driving up costs on government-funded league projects.

CFMEU Victorian secretary John Setka has lashed the AFL as a ‘little private school boy’s club’. Picture: AAP

Employers have warned that John Setka’s war on the AFL will hurt taxpayers by driving up costs on government-funded league projects, and urged ­Anthony ­Albanese to reinstate the building watchdog to address the ­“toxic culture” in the construction industry.

As the Prime Minister renewed calls for Mr Setka to drop his threats and AFL chief Andrew Dillon backed umpire boss and former union watchdog Stephen McBurney, Mr Setka lashed out at the AFL as a “little private school boys club”, and insisted the union would not back down.

“Don’t worry, the AFL are going to reap the rewards of their actions, that I can guarantee you,” he told The Weekend Australian. “I just hope they’ve got deep pockets”.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said Mr Setka’s “standover tactics and thuggish behaviour” represented the strongest case put by an ­individual for the return of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which the Albanese government abolished.

“Federal, state and local governments are the bodies that ­invest the most in football infrastructure,” Mr Willox said. “They no doubt will appreciate that the latest threats made by the CFMEU against government-funded AFL construction projects will drive up costs significantly and those higher costs will be borne by every taxpayer.”

Claiming the culture of the construction industry “clearly remains toxic”, Mr Willox said that if governments were serious about keeping construction costs down “they should take the lead from the SA Premier Peter Malinauskas and stand up to union extortion”.

Mr Malinauskas on Friday questioned what Mr Setka thought he was achieving for his members by pursuing the campaign to force the AFL to oust Mr McBurney, a former ABCC head.

“The boss isn’t the enemy, right,” the Premier told Sky News. “Employers employ people in this country and they provide the ­dignity of work to hundreds and thousands of Australians. But if you are there belligerently just thumping the table or being ­accused of bullying people, I don’t know where that gets you and I just don’t know whether it’s in the interests of workers either.”

In her first comments about Mr Setka’s threats against the AFL, Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn said: “Welcome to our world. The behaviour we have seen over the last few days is something our ­industry has to deal with day in, day out and it’s only getting worse since the industry watchdog was abolished. Everyone pays the price when people think laws don’t apply to them.”

Senior industry figures said on Friday they did not want to identify any projects allegedly subject to “union intimidation, out of fear of retribution”. But Mr Setka denied any sites were subject to disruption, saying there had not been a strike in the Victorian building industry for years.

He rejected the comments by Mr Willox and Ms Wawn. “Innes Willox is as useful as an ashtray on a Harley,” he said. “I wouldn’t put Denita Wawn in charge of a Lego block house. There hasn’t been any industrial action in the construction industry in Victoria since the ABCC was scrapped.”

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said this week that while the government had abolished the ABCC because it was a “bad, politicised organisation”, the government did not support going after public servants who worked there. He warned that the CFMEU risked breaking the law if it acted on its threats.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black said any threatening industrial action based on a declared personal vendetta was an abuse of power.

“In any case, the comments directed to Mr McBurney are appalling and wouldn’t be acceptable in any Australian workplace,” Mr Black said. “Unions have long been passionate advocates for workplace health and safety, which includes respectful behaviour, and so it’s a double standard when they make threatening attacks on an individual in connection with their employment. “

Mr Setka, who is due to finish as the union’s state secretary in January, said the campaign against the AFL would not drop off when he retired, as it would be backed by his current assistant secretary and likely successor Derek Christopher. “I’m still sticking to my retirement plan but if people think that when I’m gone this is all going to stop, they’re in for a rude shock, let me tell you,” he said. “Like we say, ‘God forgives, the CFMEU doesn’t.’

The Prime Minister told Sydney radio 2GB: “The job of union officials is to look after their members, it’s not to engage in this sort of nonsense of targeting a bloke who’s the head of umpires for the AFL, that’s a matter for the AFL. It has nothing to do with John Setka. And this guy, I think, rather likes attention. I try not to give him any. One of the first things that I did as leader of the Labor Party was to expel John Setka from the party. He took me to court and the entire national executive over that. But I stand by the fact that that was the right decision.”

Questioned earlier about Mr Setka, Mr Albanese said “it’s none of (Mr Setka’s) business what occurs with the AFL”.

Mr Setka, in response, said: “It’s more my business than it is his. For all these politicians who are opposed to us, doing what we’re doing, considering a lot of them are put there by unions, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. They ought to remember where they came from.”

Mr Dillon said Mr McBurney was doing an “incredible” job and had made a “massive impact” since taking up his role as head of umpiring. He said he hoped the threatened action by Mr Setka did not impact AFL projects, including the proposed Hobart stadium.

Mr Setka said the union still intended to write to the AFL Players Association and individual AFL clubs setting out the union’s case against Mr McBurney.

Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary, Luke Hilakari, also plans to write to the AFL, calling for Mr McBurney’s sacking on behalf of four state construction unions: the CFMEU, the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the plumbers union.

Additional reporting: Glen Norris